The Industry’s Perspective of Suitable Tasks for Human-Robot Collaboration in Assembly Manufacturing

Abstract

Abstract Human-robot collaboration (HRC) is the concept of combining a human and a robot into the same production cell and utilize the benefits of both. This concept has existed for more than a decade, but there are still quite few implementations of HRC within the manufacturing industry. One reason for this is the lack of knowledge when it comes to suitable tasks for HRC. Current research studies on the topic are mainly based on theoretical reasoning and/or research experiments, and little is known about what the industry perceive as suitable tasks for HRC. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate this and find out what industrial actors thinks are the most value-adding tasks for a human and a robot to carry out together. An in-depth interview study is undertaken with two companies and shop-floor operators, production engineers and automation engineers are interviewed. The result of the study pinpoints a number of tasks that the companies thinks are beneficial for HRC, which can serve as a guideline for other manufacturing companies considering to implement HRC.